Archives for February 18, 2013

“If they believe that action should be taken toward me or anyone else in the organization they are free to do that.” —Mark Emmert

Dennis Dodd, Senior College Football Columnist for CBSSports.com, calls a spade a spade: “the NCAA is guilty of failure to monitor and lack of institutional control.”

At today’s press conference, Dodd wanted to ask how much Emmert knew and when he knew it, but was cut off and never got to ask it. But his point is well taken, and it resonates with my own feelings about Emmert shirking blame in this case, despicably shitcanning an underling as a scapegoat to divert the attention from his own malfeasance. Dodd and I both believe that Emmert must now step down, as too much hypocritical shit has gone down on his watch.

Says Dodd:

The NCAA executive committee, which employs Mark Emmert at its leisure, … has leverage.

“If they believe that action should be taken toward me or anyone else in the organization they are free to do that,” Emmert said.

Like this:

Well, folks, the NCAA internal review ordered by its leader, Mark Emmert, is done, and the scapegoat properly identified, as expected. As those of us who have run consulting assignments know, the ostensible object of the assignment is one thing and the actual desiredresult is another. In this case, it was a “who shall we fire to deflect public criticism from Mark Emmert” assignment.

The result? Vice President of Enforcement Julie Roe Lach got the ax. See the Yahoo Sports story on the subject.

So, what do you think? Emmert comes off as the enforcer’s enforcer and slithers cleanly away from any culpability himself? You’re thinking like I’m thinking. Emmert is the “Teflon Don” of the NCAA.

Julie is the fourth member of the NCAA investigative staff to go to the guillotine, voluntarily or not. Her severance follows the dismissals of Ameen Najjar (who also botched the Miami case), Abigail Grantstein (whose boyfriend bragged that she had the power to deny UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad the right to play), and Bill Benjamin, whose short, eight-month tenure as director of enforcement turned quite a few heads, lemme tellya.

Lach was well-respected and broadly regarded as competent. Nevertheless, someone’s head had to roll and you can be damn sure it wasn’t going to be Emmert’s.

I would say that the NCAA is more screwed up than ever, and this scapegoat-seeking review did nothing to dispel that notion. In fact, by taking the action he did, Emmert affirmed the notion.

Meanwhile, Emmert is doing additional damage control by “initiating the process of seeking feedback from NCAA member schools about the best way for [the enforcement arm] of the association to operate.” Expect that to go in one ear and out the other.

Jonathan Duncan has been named interim vice president of enforcement. Anyone want to predict how long he’ll last?

By the way, I’m not the only one who believes that Emmert is hiding behind the contrived culpability of his underlings for the sorry state of the NCAA. He is a grand scale shirker. Dana O’Neil of ESPN has some interesting opinions on the subject.

For those of you who love a great conspiracy theory, Penn State’s outgoing trustee John Surma is a great lightning rod. While I don’t normally go to great lengths to spread trash, I felt a bit capricious this President’s Day afternoon. So go ahead and read THE SURMA VENDETTA. This has been around since last September, but it is a great way to stoke your ongoing anger with the Board of Trustees. Even though Surma is leaving and I’ve posted this link before, it will behoove you to give it a read, if you haven’t already done so.

If one is to extrapolate from anecdotal tidbits such as this one, we may never know the extent of intrigue and subterfuge surrounding the Sandusky affair. As they come to light, more and more pieces of the proverbial puzzle are assembled with the ultimate effect being that the puzzle becomes more puzzling, which leads to great conspiracy theory fodder.

Whatever it takes to get the damn BoT cleaned out and freed from the agenda bearers is great with me, even if we sometimes have to dig deep.

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Whodat Turkey?

The Nittany Turkey is a retired techno-geek who thinks he knows something about Penn State football and everything else in the world. If there's a topic, we have an opinion on it, and you know what "they" say about opinions! Most of what is posted here involves a heavy dose of hip-shooting conjecture, but unlike some other blogs, we don't represent it as fact. Read More…